Reese Olson has a chance to be a top-of-the-rotation starter in Detroit, and it is notable that the Tigers acquired him via trade. On July 30, 2021, then-general manager Al Avila dealt Daniel Norris to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for the now-24-year-old right-hander, who at the time had a 4.30 ERA in High-A and was flying below most prospect radar. Talented but raw, he ranked seventh in a system that wasn’t particularly well-regarded.

Olson made his MLB debut this past June, and by season’s end he was showing signs that he could emerge as a No. 1 or a No. 2.on a promising young staff. Over his last six starts, the plain-spoken Gainesville, Georgia native allowed just 18 hits and six earned runs in 35-and-two-thirds innings. On the year, he had a 3.99 ERA and a 4.01 FIP to go with a 24.4% strikeout rate and a .214 BAA. He fanned 102 batters in 103-and-two-thirds innings.

Scott Harris doesn’t believe in labels like No. 1 starter or No. 2 starter. He does believe in the fast-rising righty.

“Reese has three distinct secondary pitches that miss bats,” Detroit’s President of Baseball Operations told me at this week’s GM meetings. “That’s really hard to find. He also has two different fastballs that reach the upper 90s. I also think he did some things this summer that reminded me of what other really good pitchers do in their first year in the big leagues. I’m not going to throw those expectations on him, but his ceiling is as high as anyone’s.” Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series covering the 2024 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot, covering candidates in those categories who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present. For an introduction to the ballot, see here. The eight candidates will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in Nashville on December 3, and anyone receiving at least 75% of the vote from the 16 committee members will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 21, 2024 along with any candidates elected by the BBWAA.

Jim Leyland

Jim Leyland was his era’s archetype of an old-school manager, as he went from looking ancient at the start of his career to actually being ancient, at least in baseball terms. Prematurely gray — at 42, he looked 20 years older — and known for sneaking cigarettes between innings, he cut an indelible image in the dugout and in front of a microphone. His dry wit made him a media favorite, and despite a gruff exterior and a knack for getting his money’s worth from umpires when the situation merited it, he earned a reputation as a players’ manager rather than an old-school hardass. That sometimes worked against him, as he was prone to sticking with struggling players longer than most other managers — a vulnerability in a short series. His success will garner him strong consideration for the Hall of Fame, but his case may be haunted by the number of times his teams came up just short. Read the rest of this entry »

In the five days between the World Series and the start of free agency, there’s plenty of paperwork to do — exercising or declining options, sorting out 40-man roster spots, that sort of thing — before a team starts the offseason in earnest. Sometimes, that shuffling reveals a landing spot for a player who was going to be turned loose anyway, and we get a trade.

Mark Canha, your friendly neighborhood on-base machine, is headed from Milwaukee to Detroit, with 25-year-old Double-A reliever Blake Holub headed in the opposite direction. Read the rest of this entry »

The biggest news to come out of Thursday’s series opener between the A’s and Tigers in Oakland was the A’s gifting retiring future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera a bottle of wine valued at under $100 — a gift roundly criticized on social media for being both cheap and not particularly appropriate, given Cabrera’s history with alcohol abuse. It was the kind of story that is ripe for punchlines: a franchise whose much broader-scale cheapness is costing their loyal fans a beloved local team presents a thoughtless gift to fulfill an already awkward tradition before a meaningless game. But at least outside of Detroit, the ceremonial blunder may have overshadowed another outstanding performance from a pitcher who has quietly been one of the hottest in baseball since returning from injury in July: Tarik Skubal.

On Thursday in Oakland, Skubal faced 22 hitters and recorded 21 outs, using just 87 pitches. He struck out 10 of those 22, walked just one and allowed only a pair of singles, both of which were erased by double-play balls. No A’s hitter reached scoring position until the Tigers’ bullpen had taken over after Skubal’s seven scoreless frames. The two hits he gave up looked like this:

And this:

Read the rest of this entry »

Hao-Yu Lee will be one of eight Detroit Tigers prospects participating in the forthcoming Arizona Fall League, and while he doesn’t possess the highest profile of the bunch, he does have the most-traveled backstory. Acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trade deadline in exchange for Michael Lorenzen, the 20-year-old infielder hails from Taiwan and began dreaming of playing professionally in the United States at age 16 after a strong performance in a U-18 tournament, in Korea. Two years earlier he’d excelled in a tournament that took place 15-plus miles southwest of Comerica Park.

The Phillies signed Hao-Yu in June 2021—the Cincinnati Reds and Tampa Bay Rays were among the other MLB teams that had expressed interest — once he’d finished high school. No. 8 on our Phillies Top Prospects list with a 40+ FV coming into this season, he slashed .273/.362/.399 before going on the shelf with a quad strain in mid-August. He ended up playing in just eight games for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps before missing the duration of the campaign.

The first big-league game Hao-Yu attended was in 2017 when he was competing in the Junior League World Series, which is held annually in Taylor, Michigan. He doesn’t remember if the Tigers won that day, but he does recall his first impression of Comerica Park. “I told my teammates that I was going to play here someday,” the confident youngster said of the experience.

He also remembers the tournament, and for good reason. Not only did Taoyuan, Taiwan capture the international bracket, they went on to beat Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in the finals. Moreover, Hao-Yu “raked that tournament; five games, five homers!” Read the rest of this entry »

The Tigers’ season hasn’t been much to write home about, particularly on the offensive side, but one encouraging sign has been the play of Spencer Torkelson. The top pick of the 2020 draft was utterly overwhelmed by major league pitching as a rookie last year, to the point that he was demoted to Triple-A for a spell. He started this season slowly as well, but has shown significant signs of progress and has been red-hot this month.

Even while going hitless in his last two games — can’t win ’em all when it comes to timing these articles — the 23-year-old Torkelson entered Wednesday hitting .237/.320/.449 with 23 homers and a 112 wRC+. Those numbers may not jump off the page, but that represents significant advancement over last year’s dismal line (.203/.285/.319, 76 wRC+), not to mention a strong effort to overcome this year’s early-season struggles. After hitting just .206/.266/.309 (55 wRC+) through April, he’s at .243/.331/.480 (124 wRC+) since, including .267/.375/.653 with eight home runs and a 179 wRC+ in August, with a pair of four-hit games and a quartet of two-hit games. And he’s done this month’s damage against the Pirates, Rays, Twins, Red Sox, Guardians, and Cubs — mostly contending teams, if not necessarily powerhouses.

A hot month or six weeks may just be that, and while it’s too early to suggest that Torkelson is a finished product, there’s a lot to like about the evolution of his performance. Read the rest of this entry »

Troy Melton is fast emerging as one of the top pitching prospects in the Detroit Tigers system. Drafted in the fourth round last year out of San Diego State University, the 22-year-old right-hander has a 2.33 ERA and a 3.21 FIP in 81 innings between Low-A Lakeland and High-A West Michigan. Featuring plus command and a firm fastball that he delivers from a deceptive slot, he’s fanned 84 batters while allowing 21 walks and 66 hits. Over his last three starts, the Anaheim native has allowed just a pair of runs in 17 innings, with 10 strikeouts and nary a free pass.

Assigned a 35+ FV by Eric Longenhagen at the time our Tigers Top Prospects list came out in June, the young right-hander has since moved up to the 40+ FV tier thanks to his “burgeoning upside.” In the opinion of our lead prospect analyst, “his fastball’s impact alone should be enough to make him a good big league reliever even if his secondary stuff doesn’t develop.”

Melton, who has a marketing degree from SDSU’s Fowler College of Business, discussed his development path earlier this month.

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David Laurila: I was told that you have plus stuff. Would you call yourself a power pitcher?

Troy Melton: “I think I’m a mesh of a power guy and a control guy. Coming up in high school, I really didn’t throw very hard, so I kind of had to learn how to pitch. That definitely helped. There are always things to work on with command — you’re never going to be perfect — but that is something I feel I’m good at. I can throw four pitches for strikes, and kind of quadrant up with them too.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kerry Carpenter has quietly emerged as a productive big league hitter. Largely flying under the radar on a middling-at-best Detroit Tigers club, the 25-year-old outfielder is slashing .286/.347/.521 with 16 home runs and a 139 wRC+ in 285 plate appearances. Since debuting in the majors last August, he has 22 round-trippers and a 135 wRC+ over 398 plate appearances.

His success has been equal parts unexpected and untraditional in execution. Selected in the 19th round of the 2019 draft out of Virginia Tech, the left-handed-hitting Carpenter was an unranked prospect going into last season, only to bash his way to Detroit with 30 dingers in just 400 trips to the plate between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo. He believes the lion’s share of the credit for his out-of-the-blue offensive explosion should go to a hitting instructor who employs unconventional methods.

Carpenter discussed his path to big league success when the Tigers visited Fenway Park last weekend.

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David Laurila: How did you go from a low-round pick to a guy putting up solid numbers against big league pitching?

Kerry Carpenter: “The short story is that I didn’t play very well at Virginia Tech. I got drafted in the 19th round and that’s about where I should have been drafted. It’s not as though I slid; I just didn’t have great numbers there in my junior year. I was in a bad mental spot, to be honest. I had a big slump that I couldn’t get out of for so long. I always thought I was better than a 19th-round pick, but again, I just didn’t play very well. Read the rest of this entry »

Kenley Jansen was a 19-year-old catching prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization when he played for the 2007 Great Lakes Loons. Sixteen years and 417 saves later, he looks back at his time in Midland, Michigan fondly. The All-Star closer didn’t hit much — his conversion to the mound in 2009 came for a reason — but the overall experience shaped who he is today.

“I loved everything about that city, man,” said Jansen, a native of Curaçao who also called Midland home in 2008. “It was cold, but probably also my favorite city from my time in the minor leagues. We played at Dow Diamond and that place was packed every night. The fans were great. I lived with Rob Wright and Lori Wright — Danny Wright, too — and I don’t even consider them my host family anymore; they’re part of my family now. I didn’t play very well, but a lot of good things came out of that whole experience. Great Lakes helped transition me from being a kid to being a man.”

The 2007 season was also notable because of his manager and a pair of teammates. Longtime Detroit Tigers backstop Lance Parrish was at the helm of the Midwest League affiliate, the club’s primary catcher was Carlos Santana, and a teenage left-hander was the most-prominent member of the pitching staff. Read the rest of this entry »

Jackson Jobe has added a cutter to the power arsenal that helps make him one of the top pitching prospects in the Detroit Tigers system. Every bit as importantly, he’s returned to full health following a back ailment that landed him on the shelf from early April to mid June. The recently-turned 21-year-old right-hander had incurred an L5 (i.e. bottom left vertebra) stress fracture, an injury he attributed to “rotating fast and throwing hard at a young age when I wasn’t really strong enough to support that.”

The pitch now augmenting his fastball/slider/changeup combination was portended in a conversation I had with him last August. As his second full professional season was concluding, Jobe told me that he wanted to develop something new, “probably a cutter,” and he went on to do just that.

“I added it in the offseason, and on paper it’s a really good pitch,” the third-overall pick in the 2021 draft explained prior to his last start, which came on Friday with the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps. “I dive into all the TrackMan stuff — the vertical movement, horizontal movement, the spin efficiency, the tilt — and use the data in pitch-design. The cutter has performed pretty well.”

Asking the analytically-minded hurler about the metrics on his cutter elicited a response that was preceded by a pregnant pause. Read the rest of this entry »